Herein, related art is discussed to aid in understanding the invention. Related art labeled “prior art” is admitted prior art; related art not labeled “prior art” is not admitted prior art.
Many computer institutional and other customers want to obtain sufficient computing power for their present and short term computing demands, and sufficient expandability and upgradeability to meet projected longer-term demands. Several computer resource vendors have addressed this need using a “right-to-use” business model in which a customer purchases a pre-expanded system with right-to-use limits. For example, a customer needing thirty-two processors in the short term with expandability to sixty-four processors long term, might purchase a sixty-four processor system with rights to use thirty-two of the processors. Likewise, the right-to-use business model can permit other computer components, e.g., memory, input/output devices, and storage.
Typically, all processors are active, but the operating system monitors and enforces the right-to-use limits by withholding computer threads from the excluded processors. A customer requiring more performance can obtain (e.g., purchase) an authorization; when the operating system accepts this authorization, it simply starts allocating threads to previously excluded processors.
In one refinement of this “limited right-to-use” business model, a customer can purchase rights to use in advance and the operating system can debit the pre-purchased rights as they are used. Another refinement is to allow a customer to reallocate resources (e.g., across hard partitions of a server) by deciding which processors are to be used and which excluded. With these refinements, the limited right-to-use business model affords customers a lower initial cost plus the ability to respond practically instantly to changes in demand by reallocating and adding resources. As a result, this right-to-use business model is becoming more widely adopted, so that further competitive refinements are eagerly sought.